Finian Cunningham
Best-selling American author James Bradley talks about his latest book, Precious Freedom.
James Bradley, author of Precious Freedom
Finian Cunningham, author of Killing Democracy
Best-selling American author James Bradley talks about his latest book, Precious Freedom, and how the genocidal war against Vietnam (1965-75) was enabled by the U.S. media's false propaganda of the "Domino Theory."
The theory was that Vietnam was falling under Soviet and Chinese communism and that the U.S. was defending the "free world" and "democracy."
Bradley spent 10 years living in Vietnam, talking with Vietnamese veterans and survivors of a war that killed over three million of their people. He tells about the horror of mass violence from the Vietnamese perspective and how they defeated an imperialist aggressor that dropped more bombs on their small country than all the explosives that were used in the Second World War.
Our interview focuses on the "Domino Theory" and how a giant deception was played on the American public to justify a huge crime as an act of virtue. The U.S. media propagated the lies and falsehoods to enable the war of aggression.
The Domino Theory was used to justify many other illegal wars for United States imperialism during the Cold War decades from 1945 to 1991. The U.S. and Western news media no longer use the term "Domino Theory," but the essential theme is still played out in portraying wars as a necessary "defense" against an assumed enemy.
Take how the Western governments and media claim that Russia is going to invade Europe after it defeats Ukraine and that NATO must be ready to go to war against Russia, or how China must be confronted because it is allegedly threatening Taiwan (a part of China) and other Asia-Pacific countries. Take how Venezuela is portrayed as poisoning Americans with drugs and needs to be confronted by the U.S. military.
James Bradley discusses how the Western news media are an insidious and powerful propaganda service for U.S. militarism. The crimes of empire are enabled by a lying media system.
We also refer to Finian Cunningham's new book, Killing Democracy, which explores how the media is used as a weapon of public control. There is a foreboding sense of world collapse and growing war. To understand what is happening and try to avert catastrophe, we need to recognize the power of Western media in deceiving and confusing people into acquiescing to criminal, self-destructive policies.
The U.S. and its Western allies have gotten away with mass murder for decades, violating international law with impunity. Impunity is afforded by the media's brainwashing of the public, which prevents democratic accountability. The U.S.-led Western powers are driven by war as a form of economic engine. The "Domino Theory" and other lies are what the Western media tell the public to permit political, legal, and moral cover for imperial crimes.